Moments
by ChocolateEclar
Summary: Sidestory to With This Ring. Includes 5 short stories per chapter all revolving around a theme with each chapter having a new theme. First chapter's theme is Five Times Christopher Will Admit That He Was Scared. ChristopherMillie.
1. Five Times Christopher Will Admit

**Moments**

_By: ChocolateEclar_

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to own Chrestomanci or the Related Worlds. Everything but the plot is the property of Diana Wynne Jones.

_Summary: Sidestory to With This Ring. Includes 5 short stories per chapter all revolving around a theme with each chapter having a new theme. First chapter is Five Times Christopher Will Admit That He Was Scared. Christopher/Millie._

**A/N: Well, I saw this Five Things prompt all over the place, so I decided to give my spin on it Chrestomanci style after working on updating With This Ring. Enjoy.**

**(Also, I fixed the best man error. Thanks to everyone who corrected me.)**

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**Five Times Christopher Will Admit That He Was Scared**

**I.**

Christopher feels his heart beating in his chest like he is running a race, but really he is standing still and staring down Gin. He can see Millie just over the hedge listening. He wants to know what she thinks about him refusing to marry Gin. Does she feel relief? Disbelief? Does she not care at all? His heart wants to know more than his pride for once.

He is afraid Gin will realize that Millie is there and use it against him, so he removes Millie from the area. Now he knows Millie is feeling angry, but he did just send her flying over a hill into the deeper garden. She will be angrier still at him when she realizes what he is about to do.

**II.**

Christopher imagines that he is four years old and playing cops and robbers with his stuffed animals in his nursery, but this is real and he should be afraid. However, he really feels more of an adrenaline rush than anything else and when the lamp to his left turns into a man a great deal taller than even him, he dives out of the way of a fist and shoves the man against a bookcase with a thrust of spell.

It was ten times more frightening proposing to Millie, he thinks when he realizes that simple spell knocked his attacker out cold. He remembers the feel of his hand slipping his ring onto her finger and his palms become sweaty again. When they are married, maybe he will tell her how terrified he was that his plan would go awry and she would fall through that gate screaming how much she hated him.

**III.**

He feels like he is going to be ill all over his new silk cravat, but he is terrified that something insane will happen when he sees Millie in her wedding gown when she starts to make her way down the aisle.

In reality, something insane does happen when he sees her in her wedding gown. At that moment, he thinks he might just die of happiness and fear all at once. Conrad, his Best Man, has to pinch his arm through his sleeve to tell him to close his mouth and breathe already.

**IV.**

Gabriel de Witt officially made Christopher the Chrestomanci at exactly midnight on Christopher's twenty-first birthday. Christopher was sure that at that very second all of the worlds would ram into each other and the whole universe would explode.

The only thing that happens when Christopher becomes Chrestomanci is Millie kisses his cheek and smiles at him reassuringly and then Christopher is popped away to stop a murder on Twelve B. Personally, he would have been satisfied with just the kiss.

When he returns home at five in the morning (feeling rather as if he were the one who was murdered), Millie is sitting in bed reading and waiting for him to come home with a birthday cake resting at the end of the bed.

**V.**

Christopher returns home from Series One (where he swears he almost lost a life being run over by a train) to find out that Roger, who is only four years old, has fallen down the staircase after he escaped the nursery. He remembers when he lost a life falling down stairs, and his chest constricts.

When he rushes to the doctor down in Bowbridge, Millie informs him that everything is perfectly fine because Roger's one life is much better attached than his nine.

Roger proudly shows him the white cast on his right arm. Christopher signs Roger's cast with his flashy signature because Roger likes to look at the magic of it. Then, they go around Bowbridge making people sign it as well. Christopher ruins his suit carrying Roger around with his little muddy shoes, but he does not care.


	2. Five Times Gabriel de Witt Is Proud

**Moments**

_By: ChocolateEclar_

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to own Chrestomanci or the Related Worlds. Everything but the plot is the property of Diana Wynne Jones.

**Five Times Gabriel de Witt Is Proud of Christopher**

**I.**

Gabriel wants to rant and rave about how Christopher has just taken a stupid risk, but then he sees his other students and realizes how much they could have lost if he had not been so foolish.

Christopher looks at him expecting the reprimand, but it never comes. Gabriel pats him on the back and walks away. He does not see the smile the future Chrestomanci beams at him. Christopher understands the silent praise.

**II.**

There is another wedding in Bowbridge. Gabriel sits in the front row and watches Millie walk down the aisle and grin with Christopher. Despite the slightly greenish hue to the groom's skin, Gabriel knows he has been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Gabriel also knows that love is hard to come by and even harder to keep. The fact that there is a woman out there who can stand to be with Christopher makes him think that maybe his pupil is not so intolerable.

**III.**

Christopher does not act much differently now that he is Chrestomanci, Gabriel notices. He is perhaps a little more reserved, which thankfully masks some of his terrible pride. He treats the castle staff well, and he is unsurprisingly diplomatic.

He remembers that little boy who absolutely hated the castle and everyone in it just for taking him away from his school friends and cricket. Gabriel knows that being in this position of Chrestomanci has not changed Christopher much. It is Christopher who has made himself this person of poise and greatness.

**IV.**

Christopher presents Cat to Gabriel with his usual flourish. Cat, who Gabriel insists on only calling Eric, stares at the sick man in the bed and Gabriel knows he wants to be elsewhere, but Christopher insists they meet.

Gabriel sees the Chant family in the lad. He looks up at Christopher who looks like he is greatly amused by this. Three generations of Chrestomanci in one room. It will be a long time before this Cat takes over, but in the meantime, Gabriel is sure that Christopher is the best person to teach him how to take on the duty.

**V.**

Gabriel asserts that his death is approaching. Christopher assures him that he will outlast the pyramids. Cat seems to take interest a little at the banter, but for the most part he sits in that extremely white room and says nothing.

Millie enters the room and there is a moment where she locks eyes with Christopher and conveys a message. Gabriel is glad that the connection between them still lives on firmly.

He studies Cat, who is watching the couple and analyzing the message. Probably translating the code, Gabriel thinks. Christopher picked a good successor, he decides. He can just imagine the boy's namesake animal gazing with almond-shaped eyes with its pointed ears perked up.

It is the little things that, when combined into one satisfying mixture, make a good Chrestomanci.


End file.
